Agnes was born 27 August, 1910 in Yugoslavia. From her childhood, she was kind-hearted and pious. Her heart ached to see the distress of the poor and the destitute. When Agnes became seventeen, she asked her parents’ permission to allow her to join the Christian Mission, because she want­ed to devote her life to serve the poorest of the poor in the world. Seeing her intense desire to help the poor, they allowed her, in spite of her tender age.

Agnes was a devout Christian. She joined The Loreto Nuns in Dublin, Ireland. There she received one year’s train­ing and learnt English language. She studied scriptures of different faiths and cultures. And she was greatly charmed by the ancient culture and heritage of India. She read books published in English language about the noble Indian personalities like Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda, and also about the holy land of the Vedas and Upanisads. At the same time, she heard about the unending miseries of the poverty-stricken millions living in the vast land of India. So on completion of her training at Dublin, she lofted for India as her working place.

Agnes reached Calcutta in 1929. Then The Loreto Nuns ran St. Mary’s School in Ripon Street, Calcutta. She found employment in that school as a teacher. She began to teach Indian students who had soon become the near and dear ones of their new, young and affectionate teacher. They cared much for her, and treated her with great respect and love.

In 1931, Agnes adopted the name ‘Teresa’. Her students and others called her ‘Sister Teresa’. She taught at the school from 1929 to 1948. During the later years, she was the Principal of the school. Then she knew no word of any of the Indian language, such as Hindi or Bengali. She asked her students to teach her those languages through daily conversation. And soon she was able to speak in those lan­guages.

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In 1948, Sister Teresa was permitted to leave the Convent to work independently for the welfare of the poor section of the society. She took Indian citizenship in the same year. Now she roamed about the city slums to provide comfort to the afflicted and the down-trodden, with her meager means, as there was none by her side to assist or help her in her work.

Now Sister Teresa came to be known as ‘Mother Teresa’ among the people of Calcutta for her moth­erly affection towards the suffering people. She visited the dwellings of the sick and afflicted persons and nursed them with her own hands and gave them medicine within her means. But she felt that for nursing, proper training is necessary. So she took up a short course in nursing at the Holy Hospital, Patna, Bihar. When she came back to Calcutta, she had no proper shelter, no company, no means, and no voluntary support from anyone. Finally, she found a vacant room in a slum in Calcutta, against the monthly rent of Rs.5. She regained her confidence and thanked God. She cleaned the dirty room with her own hands, and opened a tree school there for the children of the slum.

It was a new type of school where there was no chair, no table, no benches and no black-board. Mother said to the children, “For us, our mother earth is the table, chair or the black-board, and also it is our slate on which we shall learn to write by our own fingers.” The children gladly followed Mother’s instructions. Mother Teresa taught them how to keep their body clean, how to comb their hair, brush their teeth with neem sticks. She played with them, told those tales, loved them as her own children and advised them to give up their dirty habits. In their sickness, she gave them medicine, massaged their painful body or head, and nursed them day and night in all possible ways. She gave them food, clothes and motherly love and care.

Mother Teresa’s school soon became popular among the poor. Her ex-students later came to assist her in running the school which grew bigger day by day. As the news of her wonderful service to the people spreader far and near, voluntary gifts of blankets, clothes, medicines, food etc. and also donations began to arrive.

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In 1950, Mother Teresa founded a New Religious Order, and called it “Missionaries of Charity”. The Order was meant for those who were willing to render free service to the poor and the needy persons. Some of her old students joined her, and the Order grew with more hands with time. In 1952-, Mother shifted her Order establishment in a build­ing in Calcutta, where she opened a Home for the dying destitute, and gave it the name, Nirmal Hriday (The Clean and Sacred Heart). The main duty of the Sisters and the attendants was to pick the dying destitute from the pave­ments or anywhere else with the help of the local police and bring them to the Home for treatment.

As days passed, the activity of Mother Teresa began to expand She established a separate Home, for the suffering or the orphan children, named Nirmal Shishu Bhavan, with °h donations and help of the people of Calcutta. Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy was then the Chief Minister of West Bengal.

He was an eminent physician of world repute, and a kind- hearted man. Once Mother Teresa met him and requested for Government help. He had already heard about the Mother’^ activities and sanctioned funds and land for extending her Homes in Calcutta, Asansole also in the suburban areas of Calcutta.

In Gobra, a suburb of Calcutta, Mother Teresa started a Home for the lepers. Under the free guidance of Dr. Sen, a Bengali doctor, who was a specialized surgeon on leprosy, the nurses and attendants were trained to treat the lepers. In Asansole, the Mother was gifted 34 acres of land by the Government with the initiative of Dr. B. C. Roy. There she constructed Shanti Nagar (The Town of Peace), a large Home for the dwelling of the workers and the patients.

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In 1964, Pope Paul VI, the highest authority in the traditional Christian world, came to Bombay, during which time he donated his new car for the use of Mother Teresa’s Homes. Now the B.B.C., London made a telefilm on Mother Teresa. She became an international celebrity. She began to receive donations from many parts of the world. And the Missionaries of Charity have since grown with a worldwide organization spreading in more than thirty countries.

They have about two thousand Sisters and Brothers and helpers. In India alone, they have 60 centers. Mother Teresa received many awards: The Padma Shri Award (1962), The Nehru ward, The Pope John XXII Prize, The Magasaysay Award, The Templeton Award, and the Nobel Peace Prize (1979). Mother Teresa is a living legend in the modern world, lives with her world family of humanity in Calcutta.